Complex problems like chronic disease, health inequity, access to health care, civic engagement, global migration, and food security are ones that require a diverse set of perspectives, abductive (design) thinking, systems perspectives and ways to bring them all together. Design is a way to do that. Health promotion, rather than health care is the focus that will get us from treating problems to developing solutions.
Design and Health Promotion Read More »
Social media, like all human activities, involves designed interactions in a complex environment. How we design for this space is as much about the social as it is the media.
Complexity, Interaction Design and Social Media Read More »
Although social media is all around us, there is a tendency to forget that it is still new and, in the case of public health, very new. What would / did our health communications system look like if it was designed for pamphlets instead of apps, door-to-door visits instead of Facebook, and libraries instead of websites? It might look a lot like today.
Health Communication in the Age of Pamphlets Read More »
I teach a class in systems thinking perspectives on public health. This past week we discussed the role of narratives and storytelling as ways to learn about systems and how to organize diverse information and make sense of that. All stories are fiction, but for systems thinkers, some stories are useful.
Storytelling, Sense-making, and Systems Thinking Read More »
Imagine a system where we gave students feedback, allowed them to adapt, and to take the information they learn and apply it in ways that fit the context they are working in? Consider what that might look like in terms of grades and grading and how the absence of such almost arbitrary assessments could lead to knowledge that could truly advance the health and wellbeing of everyone, not just propose to do so.
The Problem With Grades Read More »
What is mindfulness and why should we be paying attention to it in our individual and organizational work in health systems? This post explores that very question.
A Mindful New Year Read More »
Many academics are so far removed from the real world that we’ve left little reason for the public to WANT to engage us. But the downside is that we’ve taken many of the methods and tools that we’ve honed over centuries and do produce some good data and synthesis with us. Designers need us to help them step up their game as much as we need designers to help behavioural scientists step up theirs.
Design & Behavioural Science: It’s Time Read More »
Systems thinking requires spectrum thinking. People must be able to see things on a gradient, rather than in absolute compartments. Students can’t be faulted too much for having a hard time with this when they are graded based on letters where a B+ is a 79 and an A- is one percentage point higher, yet the mere presence of a B (anything) on a transcript can mean the difference between an award, admission, or a job and not.
Spectrum Thinking and Complex Systems Read More »
Tomorrow is my last class in CHL 5804: Health Behaviour Change for the 2010 year. Like every year, it was filled with the expected, unexpected and everything in between. I love teaching the course and interacting with about 30 graduate students from different disciplines, research backgrounds and educational levels. And while we often don’t admit
Systems Thinking, eHealth and Changing Public Health Read More »
Using complexity science principles to guide the process and powered by social media and face-to-face engagement, the power to take what we know, contextualize it, and transform it into something we can act on seems to me the best way forward in dealing with problems of chronic disease that are so knotted and pervasive, yet demand rapid responses.
The Face-to-Face Complexity of eHealth & Knowledge Exchange Read More »
